


Goner

by Gayer_Yet_Gayer (IronicAppreciation)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: All of it is red, Apocalypse, Cannibalism, Decapitation, Extreme Gore, F/F, F/M, Humanstuck, Implied but not at all explicit sex, Limbs get severed, M/M, Sadstuck, This fic is violent, Zombiestuck, lots of blood, you get the gist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 03:45:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7961218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IronicAppreciation/pseuds/Gayer_Yet_Gayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death. Lots of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Don't Let Me Be

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure when I'll update this. It's mostly just for some friends, but if people decide they enjoy it, I'll try to be more consistent.

==> Be the disgruntled, overwhelmed high school student

You are now the disgruntled, overwhelmed high school student, and boy, do you have a lot of shit on your plate. You suppose that this was invariably your own fault; no one had encouraged you to procrastinate so scrutinously in the past month and a half, yet, at the same time, you can’t help but feel that your irresponsible aptitude was justified. After all, outbreaks of some virus caused by inconsistent work and medical proxies had been abounding gratuitously since their first reports in D.C., and practically the entire country had been thoroughly consumed by both paranoia and inane curiosity, yourself and most others in your city included. In addition, your friend had been recently admitted to the hospital for what you calculated to be the fifth time in the past four weeks, due to some elusive but inarguably dire injury that you suspect greatly was perpetrated by his cryptic elder brother. What with flusteredly visiting him to check on both his physical state and your older sister’s condition and hassling precariously over rumors detected from westward notorieties, you hadn’t the time for menial things such as finals and college entrance essays.

Yeah, you were royally fucked.

It didn’t aid your situation substantially that your father wasn’t present to loiter about your room and hound you to establish some priorities; you hated to admit it but, even at 17 years of age, you still needed his concurrent dictation to sort out your life. But he was attending an imperative business meeting down in Oregon, one that you inferred correlated directly with the overbearing amounts of clinical disasters pervading the nation. On top of that, your sister was spending the summer interning at the very same hospital that your indisputable bestie was currently incarcerated in, and, though it relieved you immensely that your dear friend was being nurtured by someone you actually trusted, it was irredeemably inconvenient to lack her occasionally condescending, disapproving retort to your every minuscule error. With neither her nor your dad meandering relentlessly, berating you to complete your work, you doubted you’d ever get it done.

You sighed decrementedly as you glanced pertinently towards the clock illuminated by discrepant strips of moonlight cascading through your open window. 12:45. Once again, you envisioned vividly Jane’s discrete fury at your immaculate downward spiral, “First you neglect all your academia, now you don’t get adequate sleep! Honestly, John, I sometimes fear that you’re worse off than Strider!” You chortled involuntarily, imagining her prevalent aquamarine eyes contempting you ruthlessly in that endearing way she always did. Pain in the ass though she was, you loved her incontestably, and her sporadically scarce presence frustrated you to no end. Like it or not, you needed Jane in your life, and in the past two months, she had been indubitably absent.

You shifted your gaze to the clock once more, ambiguous about what you were expecting. Perhaps you were subconsciously hoping that time had rewinded just for you? Alas, nothing of the sort was the case, as the hands ticking incessantly and rather irritably now read 12:47. Wonderful. You’d just squandered 120 precious seconds missing your sister, and, consequentially, your already questionable concentration had diminished into nothingness.

You closed the Word document glaring intangibly on your monitor-you’d continue your dreadfully mundane essay tomorrow morning-and resolved to message your friend until you felt prepared for the harping liability of sleep.

**< ectoBiologist (EB) pestered turntechGodhead (TG) at 12:47 A.M.>**

EB: hey.

 

It didn’t occur to you until after you’d sent the irremediable text that he might be asleep, and that you’d potentially just disrupted your best friend’s rest for no purpose other than satiating your own tireless desire.

 

TG: sup

 

Of course he was awake. You chastised yourself for not thinking.

 

EB: why aren’t you asleep?!

TG: i could ask you the same question

TG: unlike me you actually have important shit to do tomorrow

TG: i get to just wake up and continue being half dead

TG: and also spend time with your hot sister

EB: dude, you are so weird. you're a fucking homo don't pretend you know anything about 'hot girls'. :B

TG: did you just call your own sister unattractive?

TG: wow rude im telling jane

EB: shut up asshole, you know what i meant!

 

Ugh, you often pondered exactly why you befriended such a pompous asshole in the first place.

TG: so anyway

TG: whyd you contact me at like 1 am

TG: surely it wasnt just to pander about my audacious sleeping patterns

TG: because ill have you know that being stabbed in the fucking gut can interfere drastically with obsolete things like daily routines

EB: i wanted to check if you were okay.

TG: fucking christ, why are you so much more maternal than crocker seriously its deterring

EB: fuck you.

EB: i didn't realize it was a crime to be worried about friends.

EB: especially friends who are really badly hurt.

TG: im fine

EB: do you even know what the word fine means?

EB: because it sure as hell doesn't mean being in the hospital more often than you're at home.

TG: woah really huh who woulda thunk thanks for that denotation man

TH: i feel enlightened

EB: :/

TG: oh god no dont you dare do fucking emoticons at me i already have to deal with harleys creepily expressive bullshit using nothing but punctuation

EB: what can i say dave?

EB: it runs in the family. :p

Haha! Gotcha, buddy. It may have been a petty victory, but hey; it made you feel better.

 

TG: fuck you too

EB: thanks.

EB: so how are you?

TG: great

TG: or you know

TG: as great as someone can be with fucking tubes attached to their every goddamn nerve ending

TG: but seriously, whyre you up so late?

EB: wow. nice subject change, man. smooth.

EB: and i was working on my college entry paper.

TG: ahaha you havent finished it?

TG: dude

EB: you know what.

EB: you can just stfu.

EB: not all of us are as fortunately able to sit our lazy asses in hospital cots all day with no responsibilities other than sleep and schoolwork.

EB: i've been busy.

TG: busy with what

 

Fuck. How were you supposed to warrant your erroneous preoccupation with literally nothing to this aggravatingly obtrusive douchebag? Sigh. You guessed this was your consequence for being so fruitlessly invasive in the middle of the night.

 

EB: dave.

EB: you can't tell me you haven't seen the news.

EB: shit is really hitting the proverbial fan here!

TG: you mean that nonsensical paranoid zombie infection bullshit?

EB: c'mon!

EB: you can’t just not believe it!

TG: no i believe it

TG: just

TG: in my humble and in no way medically apt opinion

TG: all this media fawning aint gonna help actually

TG: yknow

TG: solve the damn problem 

EB: i guess.

TG: you guess?

TG: damnit john, this isnt clue deluxe or some shit

TG: we arent hypothesizing whether commander asswipe killed the pretty lady in the kitchen with a fucking sledgehammer

TG: these are facts, egdork

TG: were talking real life here

EB: i know!!

EB: it's still just kind of unnerving, you know?

EB: the last report was in southern california.

TG: shit, wait

TG: isnt that where jade and jake are?

EB: oh fuck, you’re right!

EB: holy crap, I completely forgot!!

EB: shit shit shit shit shit shit shit!

TG: haha wow

TG: nice going bro

TG: theyre probably fine you know they can handle their own damn well

EB: shut up i need to talk to them right now!

 

Shit. This was getting far too legitimately perturbing for your tastes. You couldn’t believe you’d so witlessly disregarded your own cousins’ assertive adversity! Damnit, you really were contingently sleep-deprived.

Whatever. At the moment, your most imperative precedence was promptly attaining the attention of your hopefully-uncataclysmic cousin before she was irremediably ingested by a myriad of humanoid monstrosities.

 

**< ectoBiologist (EB) pestered gardenGnostic (GG) at 1:00 A.M.>**

EB: jade.

EB: hey jade.

EB: umm, i’m not sure what time it is down there but this is pretty important.

EB: i kinda need to know that you’re not like.

EB: part of someone’s entrails?

EB: being digested as we speak??

EB: jade?

EB: you there?

EB: jade, answer me!

EB: shit shit shit please be alive.

GG: *yawn*

EB: jade holy fuck thank god!

GG: john why are you pestering me at one fucking am?!

GG: and were in the same time zone silly, there IS no difference :P

EB: oh.

EB: whoops.

EB: well, anyway.

EB: are you okay?!

GG: what are you talking about?

GG: why wouldnt i be okay? 

EB: ...

EB: jade, i don't mean to alarm you.

EB: but there's been a huge zombie outbreak.

EB: in your fricking city.

GG: oh that

GG: well, first of all, they arent zombies!

GG: its just a virus therell be a vaccine and everything will be fine.

EB: not the point right now, jade.

GG: and second of all, weve actually already evacuated the area under "government council instruction"

GG: whatever that means :/

GG: basically me, jake, feferi, and eridan are driving up north right now! :B

EB: you, jake, and who now?

GG: you know! eridan and feferi!

GG: karkats internet buddies?

EB: uh…is that the pretentious hipster and the hyperactive chick?

GG: :|

GG: i mean, youre not wrong but thats not very nice! :(

EB: okay, okay jeez.

EB: wow dave was right you do use a lot of emoticons.

GG: what did that little shit say about me?

EB: nothing!

GG: hmmm...

GG: *eyes suspiciously*

GG: mkay, ill take your word for it

GG: for now

GG: anyway, well see you in a bit! :D

GG: probably a day or so or however long itll take to get up there

EB: oh you’re staying with us?

GG: yeah!

GG: jake called your dad and jane, so its all planned out :P

EB: oh, okay.

EB: are, uh, the others coming too?

GG: no, I think eridan’s cousin cronus is a close friend of karkat’s brother?

GG: so theyll probably stay with him 

EB: right.

EB: what about their parents?

GG: both of their families work as government officials, so they cant leave until the entire region is situated and the outbreak is controlled

GG: the relocation should just be temporary, so well probably return home in less than a week

EB: got it.

EB: cool, well, it’ll be really nice to see you again!

EB: you haven’t visited forever! :B

GG: i know!!

GG: im so excited

GG: ill keep messaging you as we come up, okay?

EB: sounds good.

EB: bye!

GG: :D

Alright, so that resulted less catastrophically than you’d anticipated, for which you supposed you couldn’t be ungrateful, considering your family’s condition was confirmed intact. However, you’d be conspicuously deceiving yourself if you didn’t admit to being slightly disappointed in the discrete lack of hectic fuss and peril regarding the medical misdemeanor. But, your cousins were safe, and that was all that mattered.

Distinguishably pacified, you opted to reserve the remainder of the dawn to absentmindedly watching television, until exhaustion inevitably derailed you into an inconvenient slumber. You could feel your eyelids amassing greater weight even as you disorientedly fumbled with the remote, flicking inattentively to the first channel that wasn’t static.

Yet, as soon as you positioned yourself on the couch and began to subconsciously digest the words of what you recognized to be the early morning newscaster, you felt apprehensively more awake than any moment prior, starting comically and accidentally colliding your wrist briskly with the surface of the wooden coffee table as you gawked at the woman’s monotonous pique.

“-and citizens in and around the region of Bellevue are being urged to evacuate immediately upon notification that an unprecedented break out of what is being unofficially dubbed ‘The Zombie Virus’ has transpired in a terminal ward at Overlake Hospital Medical Center.”

And within mere moments, three fundamental certainties arose in your mind, beginning to ricochet tentatively, like a terribly disproportioned juggling act:

1) Bellevue was located up north, meaning that this was a completely novel eruption distinctly derived in context of medical misperceptions, which therein indicated that, put simply, the disease could have more than one origin.

2) The city was only a few miles away from your own home, and perhaps it was paranoia immediately overwhelming you, but you could’ve sworn that you heard bustling and boisterous noises in your adjacent neighbor’s residence.

3)Your best friend and big sister were both confined within OHMC, positioned perilously close to the birth of imminent disaster.

You dismissed thoughts one and two instantaneously, subconsciously resolving to evaluate them later, and focused solely on the situation of two of the most important people in your life. You were now irrefutably awake, concentrating exclusively on the white crevating your knuckles as you jumped up and dashed for the garage, colliding with every obfuscating block of whatnot on the floor and the legs of all your furniture, because every portion of your mind was undeterredly determined on one thing and one thing alone:

There was no way in hell you were going to let two people you loved more than the state of the universe die because of some stupid apocalypse.


	2. I Will Carry All Your Names and I Will Carry All Your Shames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cronkri for my favourite dragon queer :3

==>Be the obnoxiously emotional asshole

 

You are now the obnoxiously emotional asshole, and dear fucking lord, you’re far too fatigued to deal with THIS little shit at the moment.

 

It was 12 in the fucking morning, and he was gargling incomprehensible phrases at you, hurling his pretentious typing aptitude as though you were his stupidly giddy girlfriend, prepared to inherit every insufferable whine and squeamish he condemned you to.

 

You glared at the inherently scalding, much too bright screen presenting ludicrously violet words. You decided indiscriminately that the particular hue of purple ought to be banned.

 

What the hell did this douchebag want anyway? The massive walls of text obfuscating your phone were decidedly more excessive than usual, or perhaps you were simply too FRICKING EXHAUSTED to register the magnitude of his emotion-control-issues.

 

Whatever. You knew that, regardless of his dilemma, you wouldn’t be emancipated from this bombardment of obscurity until you responded. Reluctantly, you swore under your breath and focused on the minuscule text.

 

**< carcinoGeneticist (CG) pestered caligulasAquarium (CA) at 12:15 a.m.> **

 

CG: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WHAT DO YOU WANT

CA: and then- 

CA: oh 

CA: hey kar 

CA: you actually answwered 

CG: WOW **  
CG: YOU DON’T SAY**

CG: I AM SHAKEN BY THIS REVELATION

CA: ok jeez fine, sorry 

CA: anywway havve you been like 

CA: actually readin the shit I sent? 

CG: ERIDAN

CG: I DON’T THINK YOU COMPREHEND THE FACT

CG: THAT IT IS 12

CG: FUCKING

CG: AM!!!

CA: no I get that 

CA: but kar this is actually kinda important 

CG: REALLY

CG: WHAT DID FEFERI DO THIS TIME

CG: DID SHE TELL YOU SHE DIDN’T LIKE YOUR SCARF?!

CA: there wwas a breakout at the hospital 

CG: WAIT WHAT

CA: you knoww that wweird injection thing that’s causin all these people to go bee essin insane? 

CA: wwell one of those got spilt or accidentally applied or somethin and noww the wwhole city’s gone berserk 

CG: OH FUCK  
CG: ARE YOU OK

CA: wwell yea for the most part 

CA: wwe’re bein evvacuated right noww 

CG: FROM THE CITY?

CA: from the state 

CA: apparently it’s pretty bad at least twwelvve people havve died 

CA: and a wwhole lot more are infected 

CG: FUCK **  
**

** CA: yea  **

Well, damn. Evidently you were right. His plights DID, for once, regard something more pertinent than his interpersonal adversities.

 

You turned your attention quickly back to the screen, forgetting to display vile contempt towards your friend for interrupting your sleep, and began to type vehemently in a gradually accumulating state of panic and apprehension.

 

CG: WHERE ARE YPU NOW?

CG: *YOU

CA: aww kar you really do care 

CG: SHUT THE FUCK IP

CG: *UP

CA: err 

CA: are you intoxicated or somefin? 

CA: you’re typin really wweird 

CG: ITS NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS WJAT I AM OJAY?!

CG: AGGGH

CG: STUPID FUCKING TYPOS!

Stupid fucking typos…

 

CG: LOOK ANUWAY

CG: JUST ANSWER MY QUESTION

CA: I’m not really shore wwhere I am 

CA: I mean *sure 

CA: meenah’s drivin and refuses to talk and cro is asleep and fef is in the other car wwith jade 

CG: MEENAH’S THERE?

CG: AND JADE?

CA: yea 

CA: and I swwear to cod kar if you get all blushy and embarrassed again like last time- 

CG: I WONT SHUT UP

CG: WAIT

CG: WHAT DO YOU MEAN

CA: oh yea I didn’t evven say the thing oops 

CA: wwe’re stayin wwith you guys 

CG: WHAT?!

CG: FUCK NO!

CA: wwhy not? 

CA: it’d only be for a feww days 

CA: just until wwe’re allowwed to head back home 

CG: I 

CG: FICK

CG: *FUCK

CG: HAVE YOU EVEN TALKED TO MU DAD ABOUT THIS?

CG: OR KANKRI???

CA: cronus TRIED callin kankri but he didn’t pick up 

CA: he thinks he’s asleep 

CG: HMM I WONDER WHY

CA: ok yea I knoww its late harangue me later wwont you? 

CG: UGH FINE

CG: HERE I’LL WAKE KANKRI IN A SEC 

CG: YOU TELL YOUR STUPID COUSIN TO GET HIS LAZY GODAWFUL ASS UP AND TALK TO HIM

CG: IT’LL BE BETTER IF WE HAVE SOME SORT OF ARRANGEMENT GOING ON BEFORE YOU ASSFACES JUMP HAYWIRE INTO OUR LIVES WITH NO GODDAMN WARNING 

CA: ok sounds good 

CA: thanks kar 

CA: oh yeah n kar? 

CG: YEAH?

CA: fuck you my scarvves are fabulous 

You grumbled to yourself irritably as you watched your phone monitor go dark, imprints sustained in your peripheral vision as you climbed out of bed disgruntledly, shivering slightly in the frigid fore-dawn. You eyed the wall that conjoined yours and Kankri’s rooms, and suddenly discovered that it’s only purpose was NOT, in fact, providing a convenient access-point for your brother’s insufferable intrusions.

 

While you approached the door that you’d tediously obscured behind bulky boxes and abhorrent shelves in desperate attempts to hinder Kankri’s surprise entrances, your mind raced; California was infected. The virus had made it all the way to the west coast. You and John, god bless his intolerably worrisome heart, had been evaluating the solute and its excursions for the past month as it had been dispersing about the US. As consistent pervasions of vaccine-related tribulations usually occur, this new infestation would’ve made sense. But Eridan had phrased the appearance in his city as a “break-out.” Of course, this could’ve been and most-likely was simply another occasion of his poor choice of terminology, but had it truly been a newfound germination, it would confirm John’s conspiracal hunch that the government-regulated practice predicament had been privately distributed to other hospitals in the nation, and was now being implemented unbeknownstly.

 

And if that were true, well. Fuck.

You really were screwed.

 

 

==>Be the unendurable social justice proxy

 

You are now-fuck, what the hell is your stupid brother doing?!

You were attempting to rest. Did that little fucker know how early it was? Did he even know what the concept of slumber was? Given his previous expositions of inexcusable ignorance, you highly doubted it. Goddamnit, bloody teenagers and their frightfully hormone-exalted sleep schedules.

 

“Hey, asshole! Wake up!!”

 

“Karkat, I’m your brother, don’t talk to me like that.”

 

Asshole…

 

You heard a snarl from above you as a bony appendage poked relentlessly at your shoulder.

 

“Okay, BRO. Stop being an asshole and wake the fuck up!”

 

You groaned and turned in your bed, wincing slightly at the horrific shriek of the springs beneath you, and resisted the urge to snap at the mop of messy brown hair and dark freckles glaring at you.

 

“What is it Karkat?” You adored how easily your voice feigned patience and diplomacy.

 

“Your stupid little boyfriend is trying to fucking talk to you, and he woke me up in the goddamn process.”

 

You paused briefly and blinked, pondering. The fact that there was more than one person who could fit that description in and of itself lowered your quality of life, and you WISHED you weren’t such a good person, else you’d punch your little brother in the nose.

 

“Mituna? Karkat, it’s even earlier in the morning in Arizona than it is he-“

 

“NO NOT MITUNA YOU FUCKASS, CRONUS!”

 

Oh.

 

“What? Why does he want to talk to me at this hour?”

 

“You know that fucking zombie bullshit that’s been going around?”

 

“Karkat, they aren’t ‘zombies’, they’re victims of a-”

 

“’Misconducted medical procedure’, yeah yeah, whatever. The point is, there was an outbreak in Cali.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yeah. ‘Oh’. He and Eridan and…all their cronies, I guess, are coming to stay here until it’s safe to go back.”

 

“WHAT. Does Dad know?”

 

“Nope. Apparently the jackass just decided that he could crash here without checking first, since you’re all ‘in love’ and shit.”

 

You didn’t bother correcting his rude assumptions composed completely out of inaccurate garble; you were growing just a tad bit concerned.

 

“Well, shi-shoot. Tell him I’ll contact him.”

 

“I’m not your fucking messenger pigeon! Tell him yourself, douchebiscuit.”

 

Before you could snarkily inquire what a “douchebiscuit” was, your aggravating brother stormed huffily out, concluding his lovely little tantrum as he slammed shut your shared door.

 

You sighed, thoroughly disconcerted, and pulled your laptop from your desk, opening it to discover a myriad of unread messages.

 

**< cronusAmpora (CA) pestered kankriVantas (KV) at 11:30 p.m.>**

CA: hey kankri 

CA: ok so 

CA: bit of a situation happenin down in LA 

CA: there wvas a huge hospital scene and shit and long story short the wvhole city’s bein expatriated 

CA: meenah’s drivwin us up along the northern freewvay so as wve can get outta the infected area 

CA: an I wvas wvonderin if 

CA: wvell 

CA: if me, eridan, meenah, and feferi could stay wvith you all until it’s safe to head back 

CA: mum n dad havwe to stay here to sort out the issue and wve don’t really got nowvhere to go 

CA: so you’d really be helpin a fellowv out, yeah? 

CA: uh 

CA: text back wvhen you get this 

Huh. So Karkat was being serious for once. You didn’t even know he had that capacity.

 

**< kankriVantas (KV) pestered cronusAmpora (CA) at 12:33 a.m.>**

KV: hell9 there cr9nus 

KV: thank y9u f9r c9ntacting me in advance t9 inf9rm me 9f this predicament 

KV: I am s9rry that I c9uld n9t get 6ack t9 y9u s99ner 

CA: kankri there you are 

CA: no problem 

CA: so can wve stay wvith you? 

CA: I knowv it’s a lot to ask on such short notice 

Was he being…civil? Damn, you’d never have guessed that such alternative perspectives of people you’d previously thought you’d known were portrayed so late at night.

 

KV: d9n’t c9ncern y9urself with it 

KV: 9f c9urse y9u are welc9me t9 stay with us 

CA: really? 

CA: thanks kankri yer a lifesavwer 

KV: d9n’t menti9n it 

KV: I’m sure that my dad will 6e perfectly alright with the pr9spect 9f acc9mm9dating y9u 

KV: and 69th myself and karkat will 6e happy t9 help 

What an outlandish lie. You knew full well that your dad would be too intoxicated to even register the four new members of the household, and karkat would inexorably be nothing short of intolerable, what with the newfound opportunity to complain at any given moment. You supposed even you yourself displayed some unrequited qualities at the stroke of twelve, one of which had proved to be incalculable deceit.

 

CA: are you sure? 

CA: oh my god kanny thanks so much meenah wvas talkin my ear off bout the fultility of askin you 

CA: wvait till I tell her wvhat a fuckin incredible friend you are in evwery single wvay 

…kissass…

KV: please refrain fr9m calling me “kanny” 

CA: haha yeah ok wvhatevwer 

CA: sea ya 

CA: <3 

…

Ah, what the hell.

It couldn’t hurt.

KV: <3 

Without waiting for a response, you slammed your computer screen down, blushing irremediably. Damn Karkat. Damn him and his evident ability to be correct every now and again.

 

You huffed absently, obviously peeved, and sheepishly ran a pale brown hand through dark wavy hair, forcibly shutting your eyes and sinking wearily into the bed as you shoved your laptop moderately onto the floor.

 

You glimpsed falteringly at the clock ticking tediously on the wall: 12:50 A.M. Exhaling in vexation, you rammed your face into your infuriatingly warm pillow, and eventually fell asleep to the monotonous tick tock tick tock of the ever effervescent time, accompanied by fleeting thoughts of zombies and Cronus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeeeaaah, Imma be very slow updating this


End file.
